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Distinguished colleagues, dear friends,

In our challenging times the cooperation on forests remains a bright spot for multilateralism. I thank you for that.

We are seeing tremendous political leadership to protect forests:

Brazil has just announced the lowest deforestation in the Amazon in four decades.

Indonesia continues to keep deforestation at historically low levels.

Colombia has the lowest deforestation rates in a decade.

DRC is expanding tenure rights and community-based forestry.

Ethiopia and Republic of Congo are championing forest restoration. I think that will be a theme as we go into COP32 in Ethiopia.

And Guyana, Costa Rica, Ghana and others are accessing carbon market finance to support continued forest protection.

All of this is encouraging, innovative and points in the right direction.

However, still, I can explain to my people back home – to my children and grandchildren – that while we do not have rainforests in Norway – forests are under terrible pressure.

Forest fires – we can see them, on TV – driven by climate change – they make up a growing share of forest loss.

Protecting forests is not a decision a government make once; we have to make it every day, every year, and we have to do it together.

So, we are now coming together here in Türkiye, building on years of efforts, and personally I feel that this year since Belém (COP30) has been an exciting year and we may be at a threshold of a breakthrough.

We have good experiences from results-based partnerships using climate finance.

Where countries set the strategy, we pay for results, and the money supports further action, like the Amazon Fund that we were happy now to replenish from the Norwegian side.

Through the carbon markets and the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) we can scale up, spread and sustain these experiences.

And this is really not about making each hectare of forests worth more in commercial terms than for example mining or agriculture.

It is neither about compensation for foregoing economic activity.

It is about supporting a development path – that we wish to see move forward.

So, forests matter locally, and they also matter globally.

They are essential for all our ambitions to reach our climate goals.

I believe that these efforts answer many major challenges.

It provides results-based incentives that support government leadership, but also the leadership of indigenous peoples and local communities.

So, making the TFFF a success is a top priority for my country.

And we have come a long way since last year:

We have put in place governance bodies.

We are preparing the rules for forest monitoring and research-based payments.

And we are refining the financial model.

So, this makes it even more important that we mobilize a lot more sponsor capital – from governments, from philanthropies, but also – I guess – from commercial interests.

There is an important momentum now – so let us use this COP to push this forward.

I am hopeful that we can reach our collective goal of mobilizing the initial 10 billion dollars, and to increase from there through next year. And with this, Norway is ready to contribute up to 20 % of that total.

Let me end with a little caution. Because – even if we succeed, it will take some time before payments reach the tropical forest countries and the key people who we want to support.

That is why it is important that we step up our efforts to halt deforestation in the next few years, by supporting the leadership and the results of tropical forest countries, through these results-based partnerships that we have experienced work well.

And then, speeding up the transition to resilient and deforestation-free agricultural production.

And recognizing the rights and key role of indigenous peoples and local communities.

For our part, Norway has decided to extend our International Climate and Forest Initiative until 2035 to give it a bit of horizon.

Norway will be part of this journey for the long term, and we will continue to support the leadership of others.

Thank you for your attention.